Guardianship
by Love-el-ly Joy
Summary: When Buffy decides to turn the house into a bed and breakfast, where is Dawn to go live?  With her almost-big-brother Spike, of course!  NOT one-shot  I know, so weird for me! .
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: As usual, this began as one of my mid-Season Six Spuffy one-shots, but then it became… this. -_- It's kinda fun to write xD I love Spike and Dawn. Not SPAWN. Spike and Dawn. There's a big difference. Spawn is like… with them as a couple. This is their brother-sister relationship that I adore. But, um… yeah. When you're reading it, it might actually read like a spoof, even though it isn't supposed to be. I think that the reason for that is that it's hard to write a concept like this without it coming off as a spoof. But it isn't. Yeah. This only has one slight cannon tweak: Tara and Willow are still together because it was useful to me. Oh, and Dawn's thing abut Willow and Tara paying rent? That's really my thing. It always annoyed me that there were these two extra people living in the house and usurping Buffy's funds and Buffy just let them live there, no cost._

_Dedicated to Joss Whedon xD_

_Guardianship_

_Chapter One_

Dawn opened her notebook, not sure what she wanted to do. All she knew was that she needed to feel the pen in her hand. Drawing or writing; it didn't matter.

As usual, Dawn was angry. At Buffy. Buffy was complaining about money, as was per usual. There was a very simple solution: make Tara and Willow pay rent. They were living in the house, eating their food, and running up their electric and water bills. And it wasn't like they did anything around the house. They were _freeloaders_, honestly!

A knock came at the door. "Dawny, can I come in?"

When Dawn didn't answer, Buffy opened the door and came in. She sat on the bed next to Dawn.

"Hey," Buffy said.

Dawn didn't respond. Ignoring Buffy was kind of fun.

"Dawn, there's something I've been… I've been trying to find the right way to tell you. I don't really know how you're going to react, and it's really scary - "

Dawn still didn't react.

"I'm sending you to live with Spike."

Okay. She was obviously just trying to get a reaction. Dawn still didn't have to say anything.

"You always seem happier when he's around. And-and I can't take care of you right now. Money's tight, so I'm turning the house into a B&B. I need your room. And I don't want you to see me sink to that level. I'll be working weird hours - night shifts at the DMP, cooking and cleaning during the day, and slaying in between. So-so pack up what you want. There are boxes outside your door."

Buffy got up and hurriedly left the room, kicking some cardboard boxes into Dawn's bedroom.

Oh, God. Buffy was serious.

But nowadays Buffy was making decisions without anyone's input and wouldn't budge from them, so arguing was useless. Besides, Spike was pretty cool.

Dawn went around the room, placing in the boxes all the things that she couldn't live without. Her diaries, her sketchbook, charcoal pencils, and pastels in their special metal case. A Britney Spears concert t-shirt. Basically all of her clothes, her Harry Potter and Anne of Green Gables books.

That was it.

Spike had C.D.s and a lot of books. He had a laptop (mooching wireless from the coffee shop). There was nothing Dawn really _needed_.

It had only taken one box.

Buffy brought her box down to the kitchen. Tara was there talking to Buffy.

"Citizenship, guardianship, birth certificate. It's all there. I put copies of all of both his and Dawn's papers in your top drawer."

They caught sight of Dawn in their conversation. Buffy went over to her.

"Hey, Dawny," Buffy said. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah." Dawn was silent for a moment. "Buffy, am I ever going to get to see you?"

"Of course, Dawn. Lots. Not as much as now, but… sweetie, don't even worry about it. You'll always be my little sister."

Dawn nodded wordlessly.

"We've - me, Spike, Xander, Willow, and Tara - have been setting this up for a long time. Spike had a wall put up in his crypt and we set up a bedroom there for you. I think you'll like it. Spike's coming to get you in a few minutes."

There was a honk from outside.

"Well," Buffy said. "Bye. I love you." She gave Dawn another hug.

"Bye."

Dawn picked up her box and went out to Spike's car.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Let's get something straight. I WILL NOT, after this, post any chapters until someone reviews. I only need ONE REVIEW, okay? If only one person wants to read this, I will write for that one person. But it isn't okay if you just subscribe to the story. It makes me so mad when people do that without reviewing. So you take the time to read the whole thing but then you can't take two seconds to tell me what I could do better. I know for a fact that my writing is not perfect, but how am I supposed to know what I'm doing wrong if you won't review? God, people, it isn't that freaking complicated! Everyone says this. JUST REVIEW THE FREAKING STORY, OKAY? Every fanfiction author will tell you to review. No one doesn't want you to review. SO JUST REVIEW._

_Guardianship_

_Chapter Two_

Dawn opened the backseat door and placed her box on the seat. She then opened the shotgun door and climbed in the front seat.

"Hey, Bit," Spike said.

"Hi."

They went the rest of the ride in silence, Dawn trying to anticipate what her new life with Spike would be like. Probably, if Dawn was to be honest with herself as she normally was, it would be better than life with Buffy. Spike would have time to spend with her, stories to tell, and food besides Doublemeat Medlies. _(A/N: I don't think I spelled that right, but SpellCheck has no suggestions.). _Besides, Spike was way cooler than Buffy.

"Well," Spike said, pulling into a car park about a block from his crypt, "we walk from here, Niblet. I'll get your box."

Dawn put her hands inside the pockets of her favorite hoodie. It was emerald green with blue swirls and a picture of a baby blue butterfly. In wispy curled letters it said, "_sky flakes._" Modeled after her favorite poem. Most people didn't get it, of course, but that didn't matter to Dawn.

Side by side, Spike and Dawn made their way to the cemetery.

"Wait," Dawn said. "What happens if they send another Social Services lady?"

"Red and Tara are getting an apartment. It's listed as my address."

Dawn nodded. Wow. They really did have this whole thing planned well. The only thing they hadn't told Dawn about was possibly the most important part.

"What do I tell my friends?"

"Big sis Buffy is broke, but she loves you so much that she _simply couldn't _make you go through the horror of living out your remaining adolescence as a maid at a bed-and-breakfast, so she sent you to live with her long-time boyfriend William Livston, nicknamed Spike after the bloke on Passions. Anyway, Spike has loved you like the little sister he never had since he and Buffy officially got together in the eighth grade. He writes regular poetry and short stories that are published in hard-to-find volumes, earning him a salary of $150,000 per year, as these volumes are often used as literary textbooks."

"Okay. Whoa."

Soon they were there. Spike opened the door with his foot and held it open for Dawn. She went in, holding her breath…

… for nothing. The crypt looked exactly the same as it always had.

"Downstairs," Spike said, gesturing toward the trapdoor. Dawn opened it and climbed down the ladder.

Spike moved ahead of her, opening the door and dropping the box inside the room. He gestured toward the door. "I'll let you be alone, Bit," he said.

Dawn walked slowly into her new room. She picked up the box and then…

_Oh. My. God._

The paint was pastel purple and sky blue horizontal stripes, clearly Xander's work. Gotta love glorified bricklayers. The bed frame had four posters with a gauzy canopy over it. There was a light purple computer desk with a brand-new Mac laptop sitting on it, a note next to it reading, _Expect no more gifts from Anya. Ever._

But best of all was the Corner, as Dawn immediately named it. Three beanbags sat there, surrounded by shelves of books.

Not just normal books, either. Magic books. Spell books, demon identifications, even a few books of prophecies. Not the more important ones, just a few minor books, most of which had already happened.

Dawn needed to unpack her stuff, though. The books were first. The eight Anne of Green Gables books finished off another rack. The Harry Potters used another.

Then clothes; those were simple. Closet. Socks, underwear, and pajamas in the drawers.

She pulled her journals out of the box and placed them in the leftover drawer.

There. She was done.

Dawn left the room and went back upstairs. When she saw the scene before her, she dissolved into a fit of giggles.

Spike was attempting to make a can of Chef Boyardee in a shiny new microwave. But the soup was still in the can, not a bowl, so it kept sparking and occasionally catching fire.

"Sodding appliances," Dawn heard him curse. But then he turned around and saw her watching him. "Right. It's not what it looks like."

"Do you need some help?"

"No. If I'm to be your guardian, I need to know how to use the bloody microwave."

Dawn rolled his eyes and went over to him. "Okay, first, you _never_ put metal, aluminum, or plastic in a microwave. Plastic will melt - I learned that when I was five and wanted to melt some butter for my popcorn in a dinosaur cup - and aluminum and metal will catch on fire, like you just witnessed. Tupperware can go in and so can glass and ceramic."

"So you're saying it needs to go in a bowl."

"Yup. That's exactly what I'm saying."

Spike reached around her and pulled a Tupperware bowl out of a cabinet that Xander had apparently hung on the wall.

Dawn poured the ravioli into the bowl and stuck it back in the microwave for a minute.

"Wait, Bit. It said three minutes on the can," Spike argued.

"Yeah, but you have to stir it in the middle or else it gets all crusty around the edges," she told him.

Spike looked taken aback. "But doesn't stuff usually cook evenly?"

"Um, no. I don't think any modern appliances cook evenly. I mean, you could cook over an open fire, but even that doesn't cook evenly. So stirring it halfway through is what you always should do… "

The microwave beeped. Dawn pulled out the soup, stirred it, and stuck it back in for two minutes.

"God, how do you _stand _it?" Spike asked after a minute.

"Stand what?" Dawn asked.

"All this waiting!"

Dawn gave him a weird look. "Okay, so you've been a vampire for - what - one hundred and twenty years and you can't wait three minutes for the ravioli to be done? Plus, when you were a human, didn't it take forever to cook stuff?"

"Well, yeah, but there were maids that did it and while they were cooking, we were off doing other things."

"Like what? Writing poetry and dreaming about Cecily?" Dawn snorted. From what both Buffy and Spike had told her, that was about all he did as a human. That and take care of his mom, which was actually pretty cool. It reminded her of Buffy, just a little bit.

"That and other stuff. We did have lessons, you know. Arithmetic, languages, spelling. Dancing, occasionally, but not as much."

"Dancing? Really? As in waltzes? What about the salsa? Did that even exist then?" Dawn asked, half mocking, half legitimately curious.

"Waltz, yeah, but not salsa. We were only taught what we needed to know when it came to things like that. My mum always thought that the more academic fields were more important than the trivial."

"Trivial like stupid stuff right?"

Spike scoffed at her apparent ignorance. Hmm. That had never happened to Dawn before. "You bloody modern colonial teenagers. No, Dawn, that isn't what it means. _Tri_ means _three_, doesn't it? Well, the trivium is… oh, never mind. It's not like you would get it. You people never use the words that matter anymore, do you? Oh, God, I sound like Giles. Someone put a stake in me."

Dawn laughed. Then - "Hey! I'm not stupid! I would totally get it if you bothered to explain it to me."

"Well, right, Bit. You're smarter than most of the kiddies your age, but this is one of those 'you'd-have-to-have-been-there' concepts that wouldn't make sense to someone your age. It would have to have been ingrained into your mind since you were a teensy-weensy little baby so that it's part of your subconscious mind. When I was little, I used to have dreams about the - " he laughed. "Never mind. Your food's ready. The microwave just beeped."

_A/N: In case you're interested in learning about the trivium, look it up on Wikipedia. I just remembered that fanfiction won't let me post links in my stories for fear that I'm a zombie spammer. It's really quite fascinating. I learned about it in a class on writing trivia in nerd camp (yup. That place I was at for two weeks when I should have been beta reading. XD) and it was one of those things I figured I could incorporate using the ever-useful Spike._


End file.
